With the Colorado line jumping to 12, all five games feature a double-digit favorite. That’s highly unusual for a conference-only weekend, especially late in the season when choice match-ups typically mean parity.

My working assumption: It’s college football, it’s November, and form will not hold. We’ll get a screwy result somewhere in the Pac-12, and maybe more than one.

Washington State, home after back-to-back roadies, should handle floundering Arizona, and Stanford’s defense is playing well enough to smother Oregon State.

If chaos surfaces, it will do so elsewhere:

* Fresh off the emotional win at Utah, and with a visit from USC next week, Washington faces a Grade-A trap game in Berkeley. And Cal, for all its deficiencies, has played well at home (wins over Texas, Utah and Oregon).

* Oregon has recovered from its 70-point bottoming, Justin Herbert is settling in, and the Ducks are catching USC in a look-ahead situation (Seattle next week). The Trojans seem ripe for a clunker after a string of impressive performances.

* Even without Josh Rosen, and despite its wobbly performances, UCLA is plenty capable of winning in Boulder. Both teams are coming off a bye, but in very different ways: The Bruins have had two weeks to fume, while the Buffs have been basking in glory on campus.

Chances that at least one underdog wins: Decent.

Chances that at least two of the games are much closer than expected: Excellent.

Last week: 3-2Season: 28-26-4Five-star special: 6-3

All picks against the spread. Lines taken from vegasinsider.com (opening lines used)

Byes: Utah and Arizona State

UCLA (plus-9) at Colorado (Thursday): This is an unprecedented spot for the Buffaloes, as the home favorite in a marquee game against a Los Angeles school. If the Bruins start well, they can make CU uncomfortable, disrupt Sefo Liufau’s rhythm and shift all the press to the favorite. Pick: UCLA.

Arizona (plus-15) at Washington State: Little chance the nation’s 108th-ranked defense keeps Luke Falk and Co. under 30 points, which is the key number: Arizona hasn’t scored 30 in any of its five conference games and now faces one of the Pac-12 best defenses. Pick: Washington State.

Oregon State (plus-16.5) at Stanford: The Beavers have not been competitive on the road (blowout losses to Colorado and UW) and won’t reverse that course against the stingy Stanford defense. A few big plays from Christian McCaffrey will be more than enough. Pick: Stanford.

Oregon (plus-14) at USC: The Trojans should score 40-something, but it’s not difficult to envision the Ducks moving the ball, as well. I like the Ducks and the points, but I love the over (75.5). Note: Oregon has surpassed the total in every conference game this season. Pick: Oregon.

Washington (minus-17) at Cal: The Huskies are perfectly capable of dominating from start to finish and might draw on the perceived snub in the CFP rankings as fuel for a blowout. But if they don’t start well (Utah hangover), then covering that fairly large number won’t be easy. Bears are 3-0 at home straight up and 3-0 at home against the spread. Pick: Cal.

*** Here’s episode 6, recently published, with guest Rick Neuheisel, the former Pac-12 coach and TV analyst. We discussed Colorado’s staying power as a North contender, Oregon’s need to reinvent itself, Washington’s return to powerhouse status, UCLA’s search for an offensive identity and much more.

Despite what you've heard, Jon Wilner is not an alumnus of the Pac-12 university you despise the most. (He went to school on the East Coast.) Wilner has been covering college sports for decades and is an AP top-25 football and basketball voter as well as a Heisman Trophy voter. He was named Beat Writer of the Year in 2013 by the Football Writers Association of America for his coverage of the Pac-12, won first place for feature writing in 2016 in the Associated Press Sports Editors writing contest and is a five-time APSE honoree.

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